Who wasted there money? :P

#1

Quote:I bought the torque engine at the beginning, or close too, but haven't really touched it at all after a couple of months of playing with it. I have it still on my old dusty backup CD. Just wondering if anyone else bought torque and left it in the closest. :P

In the closest what?

EDIT: added quote for context.

#2 Probably closet. Only one letter difference, and makes sense.

#3 I havent put TGE or TSE down since i got either of em.. every day I wake up early before i go to my mundane job, stay up way past my bed time... every friggin day..thank GOD my wife is a forum-aholic/chatter and both computers are in the same room..or id probably be in some deep kah kah..

#4 Why don't we start another thread? Who is a Torque-aholic, or addicted to Torque?

#5 Never mind me; just being facetious.

#6 Maybe game development isn't for you, at least you didn't spend $500,000 to find out.

Waste of money, maybe for you but for me it was THE BEST 100 BUCKS I ever have spent.

#7

Quote:THE BEST 100 BUCKS I ever have spent.

ditto.

#8 I gotta agree. THe learning curve is a LOT longer than one would expect (proof of good advertising?) but the gain is really worth it. I downloaded the Half-Life SDK once (for the original, not for HL2...) and I was like...wha???

Maybe that's just me, a noob programmer, but still, I've been used to scripting since I first started really making something useful (i've worked with PHP for about 3 years now....), and I'm pretty comfortable with torqueScript. Of course, there are the deeper concepts i still need to learn about programming in general (ie: OOP >.<), but hey, that's what torque is there for.

#9 Given my day job, you wouldn't expect me to want to go home and work on a game related project. But yup, I do.

The Torque engine is amazingly good, and more than worth the money that I've spent on it.

#10 100.00 = 2 new games.
100.00 = 5 dvds
100.00 = torque..

hmm...

I would rather have something I could make games with then 2 games, or 5 movies..

its only a waste if you dont use it.. you can try to get your money back by emailing Jeff Tunnel...
He has made exceptions in the past..

But at the cost I couldnt see call it a waste of money..

#11 Torque can help yopu make games. As I have stated many times, it won't solve world hunger or help you become better at spelling. If you choose not to use it, that is up to you.

@Josiah: If you can find one place on this site that says Torque is easy to use, please point me to it. We have tried very hard not to oversell Torque. In fact, I would say that we stay on the undersell side of things. We do say that if you are dedicated, you can learn a lot.

I am constantly the force inside GG for the n00b. I will keep pushing until we finally get it right. The tough part is trying to teach programming at the same time that we teach a huge engine. I have some great ideas that should help this along. Watch for some interesting N00b initiatives throughout 2005. As a hint, TBE is a very small step in this direction.

-Jeff Tunnell GG

#12 That's the real crux right there. I don't know if I would play with Torque as much as I do if I didn't already have a strong C++ background. Accessibility to Torque for people who are learning to program, fighting with Quark and Blender, and sorting through 500,000 lines of code is a major issue. The documentation advances were a good first step, and TBE was a VERY good step. I think that T2D will be a leap ahead in the n00b initiative. I think that advocating the bootcamps and Torque sessions is another excellent step. Especially since the bandied-about cost you mentioned of $295 is extremely reasonable. Actually, it's nearly unheard of.

The other issue that I see out and about on other forums is the artpath. Luckily, we have some great people working on exporters and products like the Show Tool Pro, but it's still an issue. I'm excited to see what Matthew Fairfax has been working on since his map23DS program is one of my most used tools along with STP, QuArK, Lightwave, Photoshop, and Eclipse. I love loading "interiors" into LW and then decorating them with objects that I can export to DTS and reconstruct in the engine. It's a very handy tool!

#13 Learning all the different aspects, tools, scripting, how the source is organised architecture etc at once is hard. If I didn't have a strong programming background I doubt I would have stuck with it. As it is I struggle with some of the source code but I'm pretty much commited to finishing at least one small project with Torque.

Worst thing for me is getting to grips with the client server architecture and the way information is passed back and forth between client and server. It's a tough subjet to understand with any engine though.

I've definetly learnt a lot from fiddling with the engine and in a strange masochistic way have really enjoyed working with it. The hundreds of hours I've already spent where much better spent doing this than watching TV or playing other peoples games. MY wife bought me HL2 for Christmas and I haven't even installed it yet! (mind steam, and the fact I don't have broad band at home, has put me off a bit).

#14 I would say at the beginning I was very disappointed. I got the code thinking that it was a generic API that I would pull pieces from. I got the impression while browsing the automatically created code documentation. Once I bought it, I was very sad. I felt like I had wasted $100. I continued developing board games and strategy games in BlitzBasic (even though I would have preferred C++) and continued my poking around in CrystalSpace.

After I created a few more games in BlitzBasic, my friends started asking why I wouldn't create an action game. I kept telling them that I didn't know how.

One day we were talking about our favorite games (computer or otherwise). I explained that Hide and Go Seek is my all-time favorite. After writing down some ideas and designs, I decided to make a computer game version. I knew that this wasn't something I could do with BlitzBasic. I refreshed my Torque source from CVS and poked around some more. I implemented a few resources and made a very simple tag game.

This was the motivation... I did something easy and it was towards the goal of a game I wanted. Six months later, I have a game that I am proud of... and my friends really like the game which makes me more motivated to do something else with Torque. Torque makes me look good. And that's why I'll use it until the end of time.

#15 By far the best $100 I have ever spent. I plan on purchasing TSE and many other things from GG. Definately NOT a waste IMHO.

The only thing I would change is adding docs akin to the Finney book as standard docs. Otherwise people expecting more of a 'GameStudio' package will be lost in the fold.

#16 This is an awesome thread.

I really want to encourage anyone who has used (or not used!) Torque to share their experience. This sort of anecdotal stuff is what we love hearing at GG... if it's a decision for Torque, it encourages us, and if it's a decision against, hearing why inspires us to work to make Torque even better.

A big thanks to everyone who has posted thus far (and to those who hopefully will ;)!

#17 Since I bought Torque in April, there probably have been a total of 5 days that I haven't used it. And that was after my wife gave birth last month!

I also have a copy of Torque at work and work on it there on a regular basis! Oops! I wanted to create games since some 20 years ago with my Amstrad 6128 but never have I been closer to making this dream a reality.

One thing that has helped me is that since the day I bought Torque, I had a game idea in mind and everything I work on and learn on Torque revolves around my game.

Nick

#18 Torque is excellent stuff. It isn't meant to be easy to work with. Otherwise everyone would be making games! Most of the people who understand torque here have gone to college for computer science degrees.

I have not gone to college, in fact I am only just now planning what I want to do. I sure would like to get into this industry, but I really don't know if I am up for the challenge. Working with Torque was an excellent step in the right direction, but I am not going to go serious about anything I like to do.


Ah, I'm ranting on. Torque is great, those who whine that they comletley wasted money on Torque should UNDERSTAND that it was meant for people who UNDERSTAND programming, lots of understanding of many aspects of game development, and probably this industry.


There is not an 'easy' button for torque. :)

#19 I bought Torque mostly on impulse because I'm a code hoarder. $100 for a huge lump of AAA code is just too cheap to resist. I messed around with it a bit with an artist/musician friend but never really had any intention of doing much with it. I'd already done my stint in gamedev and turned my back on it because I was fed up with the stress, bickering and long hours. A month or so later I got re-bitten by the gamedev bug and for some reason decided to go indie. Then one mad day on IRC, BoomBall happened. Now, a couple of years later, Torque is my main source of income in one way or another. I'm not really sure how I got here or where it'll take me, but it's a fun ride and only looks like its going to get more fun in the coming months.

T.

#20

Quote:but haven't really touched it at all after a couple of months of playing with it

100$ for playing a couple of months ... and you consider it's a loss ? I spend more then this just for one Saturday afternoon activity :)